Decision Making Guidance Lesson
Grade
level: High School Special Education
Rationale and clear purpose for the unit: This lesson
is aimed at students who are enrolled in special education elective
classes. These students are able to take
direction and follow instructions of adults, but when faced with having to make
their own real-life decisions, they struggle.
This activity is designed as a game to begin the process of thinking
about different possible decisions one could make, without yet being in a real
life situation where they freeze. The
learning objectives here focused on practicing the decision making process, and
beginning to think of how different decisions create different outcomes.
Applicable standard(s),
objective(s), competency(ies):
-Students
will begin to understand that different decisions can create different
outcomes.
-Students
will begin to explore real-life decision-making in a game environment.
Introduction:
Overview:
The focus of this lesson is to promote decision-making in special education
high school students.
-In
previous decision-making activities, students have been overwhelmed in real-life
situations. Through a game in class, we
can still activate the decision-making areas of the brain without having the
added pressure of it being real-life decisions.
-This
game – The Decision Making Road Map – will take place on the floor of the classroom
so students can physically move from one decision to the other with their car,
and write in their decisions as they make their way through the game.
Developmental
Learning Activities designed to meet the objective(s):
-The
class will be divided into pairs. Each pair will have their own “Road Map” laid
out on the ground and Hot Wheels car for each student to drive on the map.
-As
each pair of students comes to a “speed bump,” there will be a situation that
they will have to make a decision about.
On each side they will write a positive decision and outcome, as well as
a negative decision and outcome
-As
they make their way through the road map, they will be using critical thinking
skills to help create different possible decisions and outcomes for each situation
Assessment/Evaluation:
-After
the activity, we will talk about the activity and how it was for each student
to think of different decisions they could make. We will also talk about how this is something
they can do everyday when they have to make a decision about something.
-Students
can keep the Hot Wheels cars, as reinforcement that they are “the drivers of
their own lives.”
-If this activity is taking students a
long time and they cannot get through the 9 decisions or they are getting
frustrated, this game can be split up into sections, as it takes place over 3
pieces of paper. The game can be done in
3 sections to continue reinforcement of decision making in more than one
lesson.
Closing
and Follow up:
Each
of the Road Maps will be hung in the class as a reminder that students can make
their own decisions. It can also be an
aid when a student is having a hard time making a decision to go back to the
Road Map and see what they wrote down for possible decisions they could make to
reinforce that they are capable of critical thinking.
Resources:
-Hot
Wheel cars for each student
-Decision
Making Road Map
-Markers/Colored
pencils for writing in decisions
No comments:
Post a Comment